Stocks close mostly lower

Electric car maker Tesla falls 11.3 percent after first-quarter loss

Published 6:02 pm, Thursday, May 8, 2014

The stock market finished mostly lower on Thursday as investors assessed the latest batch of company earnings and sold utility and energy stocks.

Tesla, a maker of electric cars, fell after reporting a first-quarter loss and saying it would need to invest more in its business.

Companies that pay steady dividends and have a long record of profitability, such as utilities, have surged this year, benefiting from a shift in sentiment as investors sold previously high-flying Internet and small-company stocks.

"The market's still pretty sloppy," said Quincy Krosby, a market strategist at Prudential Financial. "The fear in the market is that the selling spreads to the defensive stocks, the safe havens and that could bring down the whole market."

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 2.58 points, or 0.1 percent, to 1,875.63. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 32.43 points, or 0.2 percent, to 16,550.97. The Nasdaq composite lost 16.18 points, or 0.4 percent, to 4,051.50.

Stocks had started the day higher as investors looked over earnings reports and after some encouraging news on hiring.

The U.S. government reported that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell 26,000 last week to 319,000, the latest sign that the job market is slowly improving. The drop follows two weeks of increases that reflected mostly temporary layoffs around the Easter holiday.

Keurig Green Mountain was among the big gainers after report earnings. The maker of specialist coffees climbed $11.98, or 13 percent, to $104.19 after its earnings exceeded analysts' estimates. Keurig, known for its single-serve coffee brewing system, said late Wednesday that its net income climbed 22 percent in its fiscal second quarter.

Twenty-First Century Fox was another winner. The company's stock rose $2.10, or 6.5 percent, to $34.22 after it also reported earnings that surpassed analysts' expectations. Fox's television unit got a boost from higher advertising revenue during the National Football League playoffs and the Super Bowl.

Tesla was among the day's losers. The company, which makes electric cars, reported a $49.8 million first-quarter loss late Wednesday and said that spending on investments would weigh on earnings later this year. Tesla now sells only one car, the Model S, which starts at $70,000, but it's working on two other vehicles, an electric crossover SUV called the Model X and a lower-cost model.